


Every Day They Don't Die

by possiblyfictional



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Prank War, Sad Sam, Stargazing, deans a cute silly sunflower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-10 22:41:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4410641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possiblyfictional/pseuds/possiblyfictional
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam sometimes doesn't know how much farther he can go on. But every once in a while, he finds something happy enough to save him from the dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Day They Don't Die

There are days Sam doesn’t know what to do.

There are days where he silently begs for mercy, wishes for peace, wishes for the dark thoughts to get out of his head. Sometimes Sam dreams that he’s still possessed by Lucifer and he has to watch his brother die at his own hands, again and again and again. Every once in a while, his dreams morph into strange, abstract worlds, terrifying and dark and empty. Sam can’t sleep after those nightmares, which leave him jumping at every little sound and looking online for new cases to distract his head from his terrors.

He’s sick and tired of Dean throwing his life away, and he’s sick and tired of being lied to. Sam is sick and tired of pretending that everything is okay when he knows that Cas locks himself in empty rooms in the bunker and sits on the floor, not talking for hours and just staring at the wall with a blank face. Every scar on Sam’s body is just another reminder of how fucked up their life is, and he can’t forget the history of his hunts marking his skin. His entire existence was a mess. He couldn’t help but feel like a monster just waiting to be unleashed.

Yet every once in a while, Sam accidentally stumbles across something he thinks about when he could do nothing but hate and resent and regret.

Like when a hunt gets shot to hell because Cas sniffed a body and told the truth to an official. They usually have to sprint to the Impala and then speed out of town, Sam calling some other hunter to take care of the monster while Dean runs red lights and Cas tries to justify his smelling dead people. And as the sun sinks toward the edge of the sky with AC/DC blasting from the speakers, a ways away from the tiny town, Sam ends up trying to shove a pistol in the overfilled glove compartment before they reach the border of whatever state they’re in. Some states have a checkpoint and they’d be screwed if anyone saw the guns they just casually handled at a border check. Cas would roll down the window and look out behind them, searching for police cars because he could see the farthest and Dean banned him from flying the car away because of the  _one_  time the gas tank  _almost_  exploded. And Dean would yell at him when Cas gave up craning his neck and pulled his torso through the window, sitting on the edge of the door, calmly telling Dean it was easier to see if he sat there. The minutes spent in complete chaos were honestly some of the best moments because of the light way the words are said, and the way that Dean is laughing and Sam is both distressed and amused. Sam slept easier when they went to bed those late nights.

Or if he can barely breathe for the pain, sometimes Sam thinks about those rare moments of stillness, when it’s late in the afternoon and Dean’s taking a nap, Cas out on fancy-shmancy angel business, and he had the bunker to himself. Sam would wander the halls, a beer in hand and the music he illegally downloaded playing from his headphones, exploring the bunker or taking paths down hallways he had memorized by heart. It’s serene and quiet and the music pouring through the speakers gives him strength in ways he rarely received.

When Sam can barely breathe under the strain of grief and guilt weighing him to the ground, he thinks about the times where he’s with his brother and they pull over on to the side of the road, grab some sort of liquor from the cooler, and sit on the hood of the car. They’re too tall for their legs to dangle above the ground, but they look up and gaze at the sky, be it a sunset in Arizona (Sam firmly stands by the belief that Arizona had the best sunsets), a sunrise in Massachusetts, a sunny day in Kansas, or thousands of stars sprawled lazily over a backdrop of black in Montana. Sam and Dean sometimes didn’t say anything for hours, just enjoyed each other’s company and the scenery around them.

Every time Sam looks in the mirror for a long time, trying to discover a trace of humanity in himself he can’t find, he thinks of the time Dean was a dog (who’s the bitch now), and then he can’t help but smile and huff a laugh as he glances away from his reflection, because  _god_ , Dean’s such an idiot, and Sam regrets not attempting to play fetch with Dean, or take him to a steakhouse or something and watch him struggle.

Sometimes Sam’s mind wanders to the occasional pranks he and Dean play on each other. It’s a half-assed prank war, but Dean falls for the glue on the beer label every time. Sam remembers the one time he shoved flour down the hair dryer and he spent an hour being chased around the bunker, the older Winchester pissed and covered in flour. There was another time where Dean replaced Sam’s shampoo with blue cheese, and though that’s better than Nair again, he had been terrified that he was going to lose his hair. His brother had apologized, but Sam hadn’t forgiven him until a few weeks later, when his head stopped smelling terrible.

These were the memories and thoughts that kept Sam sane, and he knew it. He didn’t know what kept Dean going, but he knew that they were doing this together.

Some days Sam doesn’t know what to do.

But some days, some moments, some brilliant instants in his dark timeline, Sam couldn’t be happier.


End file.
